Philip Pullman - Literature Literature A. P. Watt Ltd Biography Philip Pullman was born in Norwich in 1946, and travelled all over the world during his childhood, settling in North Wales at the age of 11. He studied at Oxford University, graduating in 1968 and becoming a teacher. He then taught in middle schools, writing plays during this period on which some of his later novels were based, later becoming a part-time senior lecturer in English at Westminster College, Oxford, with a specialism in oral storytelling. The first novel he wrote was for adults, but much of his work is for children. His books include four novels in the "Sally Lockhart' series, three play adaptations, including Frankenstein (1990) and Sherlock Holmes and the Limehouse Horror (1992), and a book, How to be Cool (1987), adapted and broadcast by Granada Television in 1988. Clockwork (1996) was shortlisted for the Whitbread Children's Book Award and for a Carnegie medal in 1997.

More recently, Philip Pullman has become well-known for the 'His Dark Materials' Series, fantasy novels telling the story of Lyra Belacque, a young girl whose destiny is to 'change destiny': Northern Lights (1995), winner of a Carnegie Medal, the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and a British Book Award, and shortlisted in 2007 for the Carnegie of Carnegies; The Subtle Knife (1997); The Amber Spyglass (2000), which was the first children's book to win the Whitbread Book of the Year; and Lyra's Oxford (2003). The books in the 'Dark Materials' Series have been adapted for the stage by Nicholas Wright and an opera based on Clockwork toured theatres in 2004 with musicians from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. A stage adaptation of The Firework Maker's Daughter (1995) opened in 2004. A film adaptation of Northern Lights - The Golden Compass - was launched at Cannes Film Festival 2007, and opened in the UK in December 2007. Philip Pullman lives in Oxford.

In 2005, he was joint winner of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (Sweden). He believes that 'stories are the most important thing in the world. Without stories, we wouldn't be human beings at all.' In 2007, his book, Northern Lights, won the Carnegie of Carnegies Award. His book, Once Upon a Time in the North - a prequel to the 'His Dark Materials' series, was published in 2008. The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (2010) is a retelling of the story of Jesus, one of the Canongate Myth Series. He was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2011. Awards Critical perspective Pullman has written and published an array of different types of novel - fantasy, social realism, thrillers, fairytales - as well as the phenomenal His Dark Materials series. One of his well-known earlier works is The Ruby in the Smoke (1985), the first in the Sally Lockhart series (recently made into a BBC1 film, screened December 2006). The books in this series are historical thrillers, set in Victorian London.

Pullman’s intention was for the centre of each story to contain a clichéd melodrama: The Ruby in the Smoke centres around a precious jewel which is cursed; The Shadow in the North (first published as The Shadow in the Plate, 1986) depicts a madman who threatens to destroy the world; The Tiger in the Well (1991) shows its characters close to drowning in a cellar, while, in The Tin Princess (1994), a little servant girl becomes a princess. Yet Pullman succeeds in presenting each drama in a believable and convincing manner. Pullman is often praised for his strong female characters. Sally Lockhart herself, like Lyra Belacqua in the His Dark Materials series (discussed below), is spirited and feisty. Both girls are not stereotypical females: they are physically and mentally tough, outspoken, sharp and perceptive. They are also independent and resourceful. The Sally Lockhart series has also been compared with Dickens, and Pullman’s interest in the Victorian era continues in The New Cut Gang series: Thunderbolt’s Waxwork (1994) and The Gas-Fitters’ Ball (1995).

The New Cut Gang are a group of urchins in Lambeth in 1892, and the stories call to mind Fagin’s gang of boys in Dickens’ Oliver Twist. However, despite the popularity of Pullman’s other works, it was the His Dark Materials series (1995-2000) which led to outstanding success, both critically and commercially. The series centres on the mysterious ‘Dust’ and the attempts of many scholars, theologians and explorers to discover what it is and how it works. As such, the novels combine mysticism, science and theology. At the heart of this is 11-year-old Lyra Belacqua, an orphan growing up in Jordan College, Oxford, who has no idea of her prophesied role in the destiny of the universe. In Northern Lights (1995), we meet Lyra and her daemon, Pantalaimon. In Lyra’s world, daemons are an embodiment of one’s inner self, and take the form of an animal. The intense, heart-felt relationship between Lyra and Pantalaimon is an integral part of the first book in particular.

Thus, when Lyra discovers that the disappearing children (including her best friend Roger) are taken to Bolvangar for ‘Dust’ experiments, which involve being permanently severed from their daemons, the reader understands that this is equivalent to having one’s heart and soul ripped out. In The Subtle Knife (1997), we meet Will who, like Lyra, must gradually discover his auspicious destiny. Will and Lyra form an intense friendship, but at the end of the second novel they are separated, and The Amber Spyglass (2000) begins with Will’s desperate search for his best friend. The His Dark Materials books have attracted extensive controversy, with critics arguing that Pullman is deliberately taking an anti-Christian stance. The series portrays ‘the Church’ negatively, and in the third novel it is revealed that ‘the Authority’ is a god-like figure, guilty of corrupt control, as Balthamos explains: ‘ “ The Authority, God, the Creator … those were all names he gave himself. He was never the creator …. One of those who came later was wiser than he was, and she found out the truth, so he banished her” ’. Pullman has also written provocative articles denouncing C.S.

Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia as religious propaganda. However, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, among others, argues that Pullman is critical of oppressive religious dogma, rather than Christianity itself. In this, Pullman’s openly-acknowledged literary influences are clear, particularly Milton’s Paradise Lost and the work of William Blake. These writers, like Pullman, explore the way in which religion can be used to oppress and control in a manner which obscures and distorts true divinity. The influence of Milton and Blake can also be seen in the way in which Pullman problematises and subverts the traditional divide between ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Perhaps the most obvious example is the use of the word ‘daemon’ for the embodiment of one’s inner essence. Most of the characters are also complicated figures who cannot easily be classified as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Will and Lyra are always portrayed positively and sympathetically but they are not angelic or well-behaved in the traditional sense. Lyra’s early childhood gave her a lot of freedom to roam about, and this was combined with the companionship of Oxford scholars.

As discussed above, this has resulted in a tough tomboy-ish girl with a precocious mind and an outspoken tongue. When she first meets Will, she feels safe with him when she discovers that he has killed someone (albeit accidentally): ‘The alethiometer answered: He is a murderer. When she saw the answer, she relaxed at once …. A murderer was a worthy companion. She felt as safe with him as she’d done with Iorek Byrnison the armoured bear’. The His Dark Materials series is very much ‘borderline’ in terms of its audience: it was originally marketed as a children’s book, but is read equally by adults and is not easily categorised. However, Pullman has also written books for younger children, both re-workings of traditional fairytales (The Wonderful Story of Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp (1993), Puss in Boots (2000)) and some new fairytales of his own. Clockwork (1996) is a spooky tale set in snowy Germany several hundred years ago, calling to mind the Grimm Brothers’ fairytales, while 'I was a Rat! ...

or The Scarlet Slippers' (1999), which has been televised, tells the story of one of the rats who was turned into a coach-boy for Cinderella’s carriage. The Scarecrow and his Servant (2004) has an Italian, Pinocchio-type setting, and also echoes The Wizard of Oz. As the scarecrow comes to life, Pullman’s delightful explanation of events might be termed ‘magical logic’: '… then there came one of those million-to-one chances that are like winning the lottery. All his molecules and atoms and elementary particles and whatnot were lined up in exactly the right way to switch on when the lightning struck him, which it did at two in the morning, fizzing its way through his turnip head and down his broomstick and into the mud.' Perhaps the best summary of Pullman’s work as a whole comes from the citation for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, which Pullman received (jointly, with Japanese illustrator Ryôji Arai) in 2005: 'Philip Pullman is a master storyteller ….

Through his strong characters he stands firmly on the side of young people, ruthlessly questioning authority and proclaiming humanism and the power of love whilst maintaining an optimistic belief in the child even in the darkest of situations.' Elizabeth O’Reilly, 2007 Pullman Philip | Fantastic Literature Signed Go Philip Pullman books for sale - use the search engine right, type in Pullman in the author section. Philip Pullman CBE (born October 19, 1946) is an English writer. He is the best-selling author of His Dark Materials, a trilogy of fantasy novels, and a number of other books His Dark Materials consists of Northern Lights (titled The Golden Compass in North America), The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. The first volume of the trilogy, "Northern Lights", won the Carnegie Medal for children's fiction in the UK in 1995. The Amber Spyglass, the last volume, was awarded both 2001 Whitbread Prize for best children's book and the Whitbread Book of the Year prize in January 2002, the first children's book to receive that award.

The series won popular acclaim in late 2003, taking third place in the BBC's Big Read poll. Pullman has written two companion pieces to the trilogy entitled, Lyra's Oxford, and the newly released Once Upon a Time in the North. A third companion piece Pullman refers to as the "green book" will expand upon his character Will. He has plans for one more, the as-yet-unwritten The Book of Dust, which is tentatively set for release in 2009. This book is not a continuation of the trilogy but will include characters and events from His Dark Materials. Philip Pullman - About Philip Pullman Philip Pullman About Philip Pullman I was born in Norwich in 1946, and educated in England, Zimbabwe, and Australia, before my family settled in North Wales. I received my secondary education at the excellent Ysgol Ardudwy, Harlech, and then went to Exeter College, Oxford, to read English, though I never learned to read it very well.

I found my way into the teaching profession at the age of 25, and taught at various Oxford Middle Schools before moving to Westminster College in 1986, where I spent eight years involved in teaching students on the B.Ed. course. I have maintained a passionate interest in education, which leads me occasionally to make foolish and ill-considered remarks alleging that not everything is well in our schools. My main concern is that an over-emphasis on testing and league tables has led to a lack of time and freedom for a true, imaginative and humane engagement with literature. My views on education are eccentric and unimportant, however. My only real claim to anyone's attention lies in my writing. I've published nearly twenty books, mostly of the sort that are read by children, though I'm happy to say that the natural audience for my work seems to be a mixed one - mixed in age, that is, though the more mixed in every other way as well, the better. My first children's book was Count Karlstein (1982, republished in 2002).

That was followed by The Ruby in the Smoke (1986), the first in a quartet of books featuring the young Victorian adventurer, Sally Lockhart. I did a great deal of research for the background of these stories, and I don?t intend to let it lie unused, so there will almost certainly be more of them. I've also written a number of shorter stories which, for want of a better term, I call fairy tales. They include The Firework-Maker's Daughter, I Was a Rat!, and Clockwork, or All Wound Up. This is a kind of story I find very enjoyable, though immensely difficult to write. However, my most well-known work is the trilogy His Dark Materials, beginning with Northern Lights (The Golden Compass in the USA) in 1995, continuing with The Subtle Knife in 1997, and concluding with The Amber Spyglass in 2000. These books have been honoured by several prizes, including the Carnegie Medal, the Guardian Children's Book Award, and (for The Amber Spyglass) the Whitbread Book of the Year Award the first time in the history of that prize that it was given to a children's book.

I was the 2002 recipient of the Eleanor Farjeon Award for children's literature. At the award ceremony for that prize, which I was very proud to receive, I promised to spend my time in future making fewer speeches and writing more books. Well, that was an easy promise to make, and an easy one to break as well. The trouble is that people keep asking me to stand up and speak about one thing or another, and I keep finding things to be interested in and talk about. I suppose I shall have to put up with it, and so will my audiences. I have been very lucky with prizes. Northern Lights won the Carnegie Medal in 1996, and ten years later it was awarded the Carnegie of Carnegies, chosen by readers from all the books that have won this medal in the 70 years since it was first awarded. In 2001 The Amber Spyglass became the first children's book to win the overall Whitbread Award (now known as the Costa Award). The Whitbread could, and should, have gone to a children's book long before, but someone had to be first, and I was the lucky one.

In 2005 I was surprised and delighted to win the Astrid Lindgren Award, or rather to share it with the Japanese illustrator Ryoji Arai. This is a wonderful international honour given by the Swedish government to writers, or illustrators, or others connected with bringing books to children. It?s very generous of Sweden to do that, but Astrid Lindgren was a great woman, and they are proud of what she achieved and glad to commemorate her with the award given in her name. Interview with Philip Pullman - Scholastic Kids' Club Philip Pullman is probably the world’s most acclaimed living children’s author, best known for the trilogy of books known as His Dark Materials. Awards Philip won the Nestle Smarties award for both Clockwork and The Firework Maker’s Daughter. Northern Lights was published in hardback in July 1995. That year, it won the Carnegie Medal and Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and was Children’s Book of the Year at the British Book Awards. The Amber Spyglass won WHSmith Children’s Book of the Year 2000 at the British Book Awards, was Highly Commended for the Carnegie Medal and was longlisted for The Booker Prize 2001.

Philip Pullman was voted Whitaker Author of the Year by the Booksellers Association. The Amber Spyglass went on to win both Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year and Whitbread Book of the Year 2001 and in doing so became the first children’s book to win the main prize in the award’s history. Philip has also been recognised with two major awards for his contribution to literature: the Eleanor Farjeon award in 2002, and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Prize in 2005. Interview with Philip Pullman 1. Did you have the whole story in your head when you began writing His Dark Materials? Yes, in outline, though not in detail. I haven’t got enough RAM in my head to deal with 1300 pages of yet-unwritten material. But any writer of stories has to have a certain architectural sense – I mean a feeling for large shapes, and an instinct for whether they’ll stand up safely, or need lots of propping up to make them steady, or whether they’ll just fall down whatever you do, and so on. And of course when you begin a large project like His Dark Materials, you make sure beforehand that the large shape is secure.

It’s the details you can take chances with, and afford to be surprised by. I don’t like planning things too tightly, because then you’re not surprised by anything. I was very surprised by the armoured bear, Iorek Byrnison, for example; I hadn’t expected him to be a bit like that. And the Gallivespians in The Amber Spyglass surprised me enormously. 2. How did the story develop? It came together to begin with as all my stories do, as a series of unconnected pictures. As I thought about them I began to see the connections between them. What did connect them was the sense that they were all about something large and important that affects every single human being: the business of growing up, of innocence and experience, of cruelty and love. Putting it like that, it sounds vague and abstract. But the pictures I could see in my mind, and the story that connected them, was full of vivid detail: Lyra hiding in the wardrobe, and overhearing something she wasn’t meant to; two bears fighting to the death; a window to another world appearing in mid-air – and so on. 3. Did you write His Dark Materials as “fantasy”? No.

I think of it as stark realism. The trouble with pigeon-holing books by genre is that once they have a particular label attached, they only attract readers who like the sort of book that has that sort of label. Fantasy is particularly affected by this. I very much want to reach readers who don’t normally read fantasy – I want to reach readers who know very well that they don’t like fantasy at all. I don’t like fantasy. The only thing about fantasy that interested me when I was writing this was the freedom to invent imagery such as the dæmon; but that was only interesting because I could use it to say something truthful and realistic about human nature. If it was just picturesque or ornamental, I wouldn’t be interested. 4. Did you write His Dark Materials for children? I don’t know about this business of writing ‘for’ this audience or that one. It’s too like labelling the book as fantasy – it shuts out more readers than it includes. If I think of my audience at all, I think of a group that includes adults, children, male, female, old, middle-aged, young – everyone who can read.

If horses, dogs, cats, or pigeons could read, they’d be welcome to it as well. I don’t want to shut anyone out. 5. Why do you believe stories are so important? Because they entertain and they teach; they help us both enjoy life and endure it. After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world. 6. What stance do the books take? Underlying the trilogy there is a myth of creation and rebellion, of development and strife, and so on. I don’t make this myth explicit anywhere, but it was important for me to have it clear in my mind. It depicts a struggle: the old forces of control and ritual and authority, the forces which have been embodied throughout human history in such phenomena as the Inquisition, the witch-trials, the burning of heretics, and which are still strong today in the regions of the world where religious zealots of any faith have power, are on one side; and the forces that fight against them have as their guiding principle an idea which is summed up in the words The Republic of Heaven. It’s the Kingdom against the Republic. And everything follows from that.

So, for instance, the book depicts the Temptation and Fall not as the source of all woe and misery, as in traditional Christian teaching, but as the beginning of true human freedom – something to be celebrated, not lamented. And the Tempter is not an evil being like Satan, prompted by malice and envy, but a figure who might stand for Wisdom. The myth has allowed me to link together many aspects of the story in a sort of invisible way which might not be apparent to the reader, but which I have found helpful. For example, it explains where dæmons come from, and what happens when we die, and why there are many universes. And if certain Christian critics are confused by this, and imagine I’m denying the difference between good and evil, then all I can say is that I shall pray for them. 7. Where and when do you write? I write in my shed, at the bottom of the garden. It’s quite comfortable in there, but because of my superstition about not tidying it during the course of a book, it’s now an abominable tip. I write by hand, using a ballpoint pen on narrow lined A4 paper (with two holes, not four).

I sit at a table covered with an old kilim rug, on a vastly expensive Danish orthopaedic chair, which has made a lot of difference to my back. The table is raised on wooden blocks so it’s a bit higher than normal. I write three pages every day (one side of the paper only). That’s about 1100 words. Then I stop, having made sure to write the first sentence on the next page, so I never have a blank page facing me in the morning. After lunch I always watch Neighbours. Soap operas are interesting because there’s no limit to the length a story can have – it can go on for months, if it’s got some life in it. I like watching the script editors losing interest in one story-line and promoting another instead, and it’s fascinating to watch some characters gaining story-potency as others lose it, and to try and work out why it’s happening. Neighbours is better than EastEnders or Coronation Street for this, because there’s no distracting social comment. It’s all pure story: one thing following another. 8. How long does it take to write a book? Northern Lights took two years, and so did The Subtle Knife.

The Amber Spyglass has taken three. But they were all long books. Short books take less time, not surprisingly. 9. How do you come up with the characters’ names? Some just appear. As soon as Lyra came to my mind, I knew what she was called. Others I have to make up. Lee Scoresby, for instance: the Lee part comes from the actor Lee Van Cleef, who appeared in the Dollar films with Clint Eastwood, because I thought my Lee would look like him, and the Scoresby comes from William Scoresby, who was a real Arctic explorer. 10. Are the characters based on people you know? Not consciously. I just think of them. 11. How did you come up with the idea of daemons? When I first saw Lyra in my mind’s eye, there was someone or something close by, which I realised was an important part of her. When I wrote the first four words of Northern Lights – ‘Lyra and her dæmon’ – the relationship suddenly sprang into focus.

One very important thing is that children’s dæmons can change shape, whereas they gradually lose the power to change during adolescence, and adults’ daemons have one fixed animal shape which they keep for the rest of their lives. The daemon, and especially the way it grows and develops with its person, expresses a truth about human nature which it would have been hard to show so vividly otherwise. 12. What would you choose as your own daemon? You can’t choose – that’s the point. You have to make the best of whatever your nature is. As an old sailor says to Lyra in Northern Lights, “There’s plenty of folk as’d like to have a lion as a daemon and they end up with a poodle.” If you do want to know what your daemon is likely to be, the best way to find out is to ask your friends to tell you – anonymously. 13. Have you seen the northern lights? No. They were one of the many things I had to read about and imagine. 14. Which children’s writers do you admire? Lots. Peter Dickinson, Jan Mark, Anne Fine, Jacqueline Wilson, Janni Howker, Michael Morpurgo, Allan Ahlberg – too many to name, really.

15. What was your favourite book as a child? Norman Lindsay’s The Magic Pudding. 16. Which books have made a difference to your life? The books which have made the most difference to my life have been Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the Sherlock Holmes stories of Arthur Conan Doyle, the Superman and Batman comics which were published when I was young – i.e. before they became ‘dark’ and self-consciously post-modernist, The Picture History of Painting by H.W. and D.J. Janson which I bought with a book token when I was fifteen, and Bernard Shaw’s Collected Letters. By Philip Pullman Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp His Dark Materials Trilogy Once Upon a Time in the North Philip Pullman Pack: Ages 7-11 Philip Pullman Pair Sally Lockhart Mysteries Pack x 4 Sally Lockhart Quartet Philip Pullman books | Folio biography 'Readers find heaven in his pages' Christopher Hitchens Early Life Philip Pullman was born in Norwich in 1946 the son of Audrey Evelyn Pullman and Alfred Outram Pullman, an RAF pilot.

He travelled extensively as a child, living in Australia, Zimbabwe and England before his family settled in North Wales. Pullman’s father was killed in 1953 whilst fighting in the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya. An avid reader, particularly of comic books, he discovered Milton’s Paradise Lost as a child, which would have a profound effect on his book His Dark Materials. After attending Ysgol Ardudwy, a secondary school in Harlech, Pullman went Exeter College, Oxford, where he read English. At 25 he trained as a teacher and would work in various middle schools in Oxford for the next 12 years. Whilst teaching English he would often read stories to entertain and inspire his pupils, he also began to develop his own writing in earnest. In 1976 Pullman published the fantasy novel Galatea, but his involvement in writing school plays encouraged him to develop stories for children. In 1982 published his first work of fiction for young readers, Count Karlstein appreared. In 1986 he published The Ruby in the Smoke, his first in a quartet of novels featuring the character Sally Lockhart.

After The Ruby in the Smoke, Pullman stopped teaching full time to dedicate himself to writing, working as a part-time lecturer in teaching studies at Westminster College, Oxford. Throughout this time he wrote to a strict regime of three pages a day in a shed at the bottom of his garden, often a mess of manuscripts and piles of books. His Dark Materials In 1993 he began working on what would be his most successful book, the first in the trilogy His Dark Materials, Northern Lights. Published as The Golden Compass in the United States, Northern Lights was a huge success, winning the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. Set in a parallel universe, the coming-of-age story of Lyra Belacqua delves into the ideas of physics, consciousness and original sin and is an inversion of Milton’s Paradise Lost, speaking to adults as much as to children. Northern Lights was followed in 1997 by The Subtle Knife, which won the American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults, and introduced the character of Will Parry to the series.

In 2000 Pullman concluded the trilogy with The Amber Spyglass, an enormous critical success which was longlisted for the Booker Prize and won the 2001 Whitbread Book of the Year Award: in both cases the first time this had occurred with a book written for children. Since the publication of His Dark Materials he has received many honours, including a CBE in the 2004 Honours List and the 2002 Eleanor Farjeon Award for children’s literature. He has written the children’s book The Scarecrow and his Servant, published in 2004 and the novel for adults The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ in 2010. He has published two further companions to His Dark Materials, Lyra’s Oxford in 2003 and Once Upon a Time in the North in 2008. Since 2008 he has been working on a larger companion to His Dark Materials addressing the representation of religion in the first three books, entitled The Book of Dust. He married Judith Speller in 1970 and they have two sons – James and Thomas.

Pullman continues to live in Oxford, the setting for a lot of his fiction, though he no longer writes in a shed. Buy books by this Author Clove Building, 4 Maguire Street, London SE1 2NQ Philip Pullman - Scholastic Kids' Club My Page Philip Pullman Philip Pullman is the author of The Golden Compass, the Hollywood smash hit film starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. Before conquering Hollywood, the book – originally published as Northern Lights – sold several million copies and won just about every major children’s book prize going. Philip travelled all round the world as a boy, devouring comic books and idolising his heroes Batman and Superman. When he grew up he became a teacher in Oxford and started to write books in a shed at the bottom of his garden. Even though The Golden Compass has stirred up controversy, he says that if it suddenly became against the law to write stories, he would break the law without a second’s hesitation. He says, “Stories are the most important thing in the world. Without stories, we wouldn’t be human beings at all.” When Philip isn’t writing, he likes to play the piano (badly), draw and make things out of wood.

More top authors and illustrators Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp Clockwork Once Upon a Time in the North The Amber Spyglass The Ruby in the Smoke The Ruby in the Smoke The Ruby in the Smoke The Scarecrow and his Servant The Shadow in the North The Shadow in the North The Shadow in the North The Subtle Knife The Tiger in the Well The Tiger in the Well The Tiger in the Well The Tin Princess The Tin Princess Awards Philip won the Nestle Smarties award for both Clockwork and The Firework Maker’s Daughter. Northern Lights was published in hardback in July 1995. That year, it won the Carnegie Medal and Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and was Children’s Book of the Year at the British Book Awards. The Amber Spyglass won WHSmith Children’s Book of the Year 2000 at the British Book Awards, was Highly Commended for the Carnegie Medal and was longlisted for The Booker Prize 2001. Philip Pullman was voted Whitaker Author of the Year by the Booksellers Association.

The Amber Spyglass went on to win both Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year and Whitbread Book of the Year 2001 and in doing so became the first children’s book to win the main prize in the award’s history. Philip has also been recognised with two major awards for his contribution to literature: the Eleanor Farjeon award in 2002, and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Prize in 2005. The Evil Mind of Philip Pullman by Eric Barger Links First book by anti-Christian author set for movie release in December 2007 I have been warning audiences about Pullman and his trilogy of books (called �His Dark Materials� including The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass) for several years. Since the 1995 release of the first book, Pullman has sold over 15 million copies of the trilogy worldwide. He has been called �the next J.K. Rowling� (Harry Potter) and is known primarily as a children�s author.

He has received numerous awards such as the Carnegie Medal for Children�s Literature twice (1995 and 2007) and was the first children�s author to be awarded the Whitbread Prize (2001). Philip Pullman also uses literature to further his outspoken objective � to undermine the Christian faith and make a mockery of the God of the Bible. Now, his first book is coming to the big screen. Originally titled Northern Lights (UK title), the movie version of The Golden Compass produced by New Line Cinema, stars actress Nicole Kidman and is due for worldwide release in theaters on December 7th. To say that Philip Pullman is avidly �anti-Christian� really doesn�t really speak to the extent of how rabidly ANTI-CHRISTIAN he is. Pullman isn�t out to merely deny there is a God. He wants to desecrate the very idea of a supreme being.

He told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2003, �My books are about killing God.� British columnist, Peter Hitchens called Pullman �The most dangerous author in Britain,� describing him as the author �the atheists would have been praying for, if atheists prayed!� A quote or two from the darkest of Pullman�s three books vividly illustrates Hitchen�s contentions. ��[the angel] said quietly, 'The Authority, God the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, El, Adoni, the King, the Father, the Almighty � those were the names he gave himself. He was never the creator. He was an angel like ourselves � the first angel, true, the most powerful, but he was formed of Dust as we are � The first angels condensed out of Dust, and the Authority was the first of all. He told all who came after him that he had created them, but it was a lie.�� (The Amber Spyglass pp. 33-34) �...

he was so old, and he was terrified, crying like a baby and cowering � Demented and powerless, the aged being could only weep and mumble in fear and pain and misery � The old one was uttering a wordless groaning whimper that went on and on, and grinding his teeth, and compulsively plucking at himself with his free hand � the ancient of days � having no will of his own � responding to simple kindness like a flower to the sun.� (The Amber Spyglass pp. 431-432) Though The Golden Compass is the least offensive of Pullman�s three books and reports indicate that the movie�s producers have eliminated some of the more vile elements that could have been in this first film, I strongly encourage you and your family to avoid it. Besides Pullman�s deplorable anti-God views and violent and surreal themes, The Golden Compass incorporates what has been called a worst-case global warming scenario as well. Rather than give your time, money, mind and emotions to Pullman�s philosophy for two hours, I suggest you use this occasion to warn others about his books and movie.

(c) copyright 2007, Eric Barger The Observer Profile: Philip Pullman | Books | The Guardian Share on Messenger Close There's a story Philip Pullman tells to illustrate what he's about. Many years ago, on holiday, he decided to amuse his five-year-old son, Tom, by giving him a version of the Odyssey every night. 'By the end of the story, Tom, who was sitting with a glass in his hand, was so galvanised he bit a chunk out of the glass. That's the power of storytelling. Thank you Homer.' The author of The Amber Spyglass likes to place himself in the oral tradition, and is only too happy to acknowledge literary forebears such as Milton, Blake, Swift and Dickens. To Pullman, stories are simply part of our collective inheritance. 'What I am given is the story. What I have to contribute is my telling of it.' Everything about Pullman's childhood contributed to the making of a master storyteller. He was born in Norwich in 1946, son of an RAF fighter pilot. He and his younger brother were living in southern Rhodesia when Pullman senior was killed in action, flying a sortie against Mau Mau terrorists in Kenya.

Philip was just seven years old. His mother's remarriage took him to Australia in the 1950s where he discovered Batman and Superman, and became liberated from English fictional models. In an uncanny echo of JK Rowling's Harry Potter, this late child of empire then found himself shipped home to an English prep school, a voyage that inspired a taste for epic worlds. Like many children sent away to school he found an emotional anchor in his grandfather, a Norfolk clergyman, who 'took us to church on Sunday and told us Bible stories'. At school, he acquired the habit of improvising stories, of finding comfort in a parallel universe that's stayed with him ever since. He retains the slight detachment of the fatherless boy. And having lost faith in Christianity he has sought an alternative in the adjacent world of his fiction. After reading English at Oxford, Pullman stayed on there, working briefly for Moss Bros, and then as a librarian. Later, he trained to become a teacher. Some of his utterances to the press in recent years have had the didactic contrariness of the ex-schoolteacher. From 1972 he taught pre-teenage children at two Oxford schools. He also wrote school plays.

The distinguished children's author-illustrator Shirley Hughes comments on the 'extraordinary range of [Pullman's] reading in mythology, literature and the Bible'. Pullman adapted some of this storytelling into fiction. He learned that it was possible to make what Hughes calls 'this incredible demand on the reader' and - if the narrative was right - to get away with it. In the aftermath of winning the Whitbread Prize, Pullman told The Observer that his audience 'does not consist just of children, but does of course include children'. The inferior status of the children's book writer in the English literary class system plainly rankles. In 1983, having published two unsuccessful novels, Pullman completed a 'pastiche Victorian thriller', based on ideas he had explored as a teacher. His agent sent it to David Fickling, a young editor in the children's department of Oxford University Press. 'I read it at one go,' Fickling recalls. 'It was as good as Wilkie Collins. And it had what his work always has, which is an amazing economy - the best result by the shortest route.' The Ruby in the Smoke (1985) established Pullman as a children's writer to watch.

Then came Northern Lights (1995 - later The Golden Compass), the first volume in a projected trilogy which, taking title and inspiration from Milton, Pullman christened His Dark Materials. This, says Fickling, was 'unbelievably original... and if the world didn't think it was amazing, I should have been very surprised.' Pullman's trilogy contains many of the familiar elements of fantasy and adventure novels: juvenile heroes who undergo life-threatening and character-forming trials; an epic struggle between good and evil; love and hatred; and a cliffhanging narrative. His work is bursting with big ideas and with answers to his passionate demand that children's literature should be about grown-up things: Where did we come from? Where do we go? What is our purpose as human beings, and how should we conduct our lives? Pullman also gives his readers angels of immense spiritual purity who happen to like Kendal Mint Cake, tiny creatures called Gallivespians, nice witches, and (his most celebrated invention) 'dæmons' - the outward manifestation of our inner lives in animal form. He exposes his characters to page-turning adventures. 'Children aren't interested in irony and cleverness,' he has said.

'They want the story, what happened next.' But the early Nineties was not a good time to be writing for children who, it was widely held, were only interested in video games and cartoons. Pullman achieved his first big moment of recognition, with the award of the Carnegie Prize in 1995. It was then that he broke cover, accepting the prize with the widely-quoted assertion that 'only in children's literature is the story taken seriously'. Pullman's undiplomatic candour (what some have described as 'a mixture of charm and awkwardness') is the residue of his years in the literary wilderness. While the as-yet-uncompleted trilogy grew in reputation, the literary tide turned in favour of writers for children. Rowling achieved her astonishing audience; Tolkien was rediscovered; and Pullman became published in America (where he is known as an author for adults), and France and Germany (where he has a huge readership). He could afford to give up teaching and devote himself to The Subtle Knife (1997) and then The Amber Spyglass (2000). The latter has sold several hundred thousand copies, but Pullman still lives in Oxford with his wife, Jude, and their two sons.

He writes, like Roald Dahl, in a shed in the garden. He works in silence, drafting and redrafting each sentence until he's got it just right. And just as Tolkien created 'The Shire', an idealised version of the English pastoral, so Pullman's imaginative world reflects the atmosphere of 1970s socio-political crisis in which he first began to write. His favourite character, the deliciously villainous Mrs Coulter, owes more than a little to Mrs Thatcher. Goodness, and the related theme of tolerance, is a subject that fascinates him. As his trilogy unfolded he has developed his ideas about a 'Republic of Heaven', a place of joy and delight, and the promise of connection with something beyond ourselves. 'We all need some sort of myth,' he has said. 'Some sort of over-arching narrative to live by. For hundreds of years in the West, this need was fulfilled by the Christian story, but that is now either dead or dying.' It is Pullman's anticlericalism that caused the Catholic Herald to denounce his work as 'truly the stuff of nightmares... worthy of the bonfire.' He counters with 'Look at the whole story...

Is it celebrating love, kindness, open-minded curiosity? Is it condemning cruelty, cold-heartedness, fanaticism? Yes it is.' Since the publication of The Amber Spyglass, Pullman has stepped up his assault on CS Lewis, accusing him, with some justification, of 'misogyny, racism and a sado-masochistic relish for violence'. In turn, he has found himself enthusiastically adopted as a myth-maker for 'the children of a faithless age'. Friends and fellow-writers don't wholly recognise this. To Shirley Hughes, he's a writer 'of extraordinary descriptive power' whose 'work will surely live for ever like all the finest children's writing... The thing is that he's terribly visual. He draws on the tradition of grand narrative and simply nothing can match the power of his imagination.' In this, he owes a debt to another literary and artistic hero, William Blake, a writer who famously once said he saw a tree 'starred with angels'. It's the quotidian dimension to his imagination that makes his work of such interest to contemporary readers.

Like Lewis, he gives us a parallel world, but unlike Lewis it's a 'multiverse' fraught with doom, dysfunction and despair, a vision of society drawn from the pages of Gustave Doré, one of his favourite artists. Pullman himself makes an unlikely demon. In person, he is thoughtful, good-natured and passionately interested in what the world has to tell him. Like his admired predecessors, he is only giving back to his audience the stories it has already vouchsafed in a thousand unguarded moments. First and foremost a teller of tales, he acknowledges 'the absolute preciousness' of reality in all its chaos and discomfort. 'Here is where we are,' he told The Observer, 'and now is where we live.' It was this deeply rooted, practical Englishness that the guests at the Whitbread Prize were applauding on Tuesday, a storyteller for the tribe.

Born: 19 October 1946, Norwich Family: Married to Jude; two sons, Jamie (a viola player) and Tom (a music student) Job: 'I write stories' Philip Pullman | Books | The Guardian Philip Pullman Close 1946- "We still need joy and delight, the promise of connection with something beyond ourselves. Perhaps children's literature is the last forum left for such a project." Birthplace Read English at Oxford University Other jobs Pullman worked briefly for Moss Bros in Oxford, then as a librarian, then retrained as a teacher Did you know? His office is a garden shed which he shares with a 6ft tall stuffed rat Critical verdict The third part of the His Dark Materials trilogy, The Amber Spyglass, was the first 'children's book' to win the Whitbread prize. The trilogy was widely acclaimed for its gripping plot, absorbing characters, richly inventive imaginative landscape and fearless exploration of big ideas, from the nature of hell to the existence, or otherwise, of God. Some critics, however, found the third volume baggier than the previous two.

The only sour note came from the religious lobby, with the Catholic Herald describing his work as "truly the stuff of nightmares... worthy of the bonfire." Not surprising, given Pullman's hatred of organised religion and his statement that "I am all for the death of God." Yet he is a firm believer that writers have a duty to tackle the great moral questions, and it is his ability to do this in such a rich and versatile manner that elevates his work above the fantasy or genre pigeonholes. Recommended works The epic His Dark Materials trilogy is the place to start. Northern Lights (1995) is the first, followed by The Subtle Knife (1997) and The Amber Spyglass (2000). In a cliffhanging narrative the trilogy tells of a struggle between good and evil; love and hatred, centred around Lyra and Will, who come from alternate worlds. Their companions and foes include angels, spectres, a cavalcade of ghosts and an armoured bear. The possibility of more stories about the two youngsters has been fuelled by the success of Lyra's Oxford, a sequel of sorts.

Pullman's Sally Lockhart novels, pastiche Victorian thrillers based around the adventures of a tough female private investigator, are more typical 'children's stories', but are still page-turning adventures with strong characterisation. The first is The Ruby in the Smoke (1985). Influences Swift and Dickens in the storytelling tradition, Milton and Blake for metaphysical allusions Now read on Kids, turn to the wonderful Diana Wynne Jones; teenagers, try Alan Garner; grown-ups, it's got to be Paradise Lost Adaptations The His Dark Materials trilogy has been adapted for the National Theatre by Nicholas Wright. There are also plans for a film version, with a screenplay by Tom Stoppard; Pullman is said to favour Nicole Kidman to play the beautiful but dangerous Mrs Coulter. In 2001 the BBC adapted his twisted fairy tale, I Was a Rat. Useful links and work online Work online

Question: Which book by Phillip Pullman was awarded the 2001 Whitbread Prize for Literature?
Answer: The Amber Spyglass